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LXer Weekly Roundup for 08-May-2011

In the Roundup this week we have Unity not all that unifying, Steven Rosenberg can feel the speed, Mono Developers get the Axe from Novells new owners, Oracle's claims against Google drop from 132 to 3 in one fell swoop and Emery Fletcher asks just what is the target audience for Natty Narwhal? Enjoy!

16 things we'd change about Ubuntu: Ubuntu is a popular Linux-based distro but, like everything in life, it isn't perfect. There's plenty that could be improved, both in terms of software and the way it goes about doing things. Here's what we think would improve it.

Ubuntu Unity not all that unifying: Right now I am at a loss as what to think of Unity, Ubuntu's new desktop interface. Like many long-time Ubuntu fans I was eagerly awaiting Ubuntu Natty, the latest release of Ubuntu. Most of all I wanted to try out Unity, the new interface that Mark Shuttleworth has been promoting as the next big step forward for Ubuntu Linux. I'd tried various versions of Unity during its development but was mostly disappointed, a fact I put down to it being early testing software. When Natty was released Unity would so much better, I rationalized.

Five Debian Based Alternatives to Ubuntu 11.04: If you are one of the many that has mixed feelings about the Unity desktop then odds are you may be looking for alternatives to the latest Ubuntu release. The following is a round up of alternatives that won't leave you feeling completely lost as they still use the apt-get package manager.

Mono Developers Go Bye-Bye From Attachmate: Attachmate completed their acquisition of Novell last week and turned the assets into the Novell and SUSE business units. This morning the first signs of changes were announced when over one-hundred employees would be losing their jobs as part of the streamlining process. Later on in the day I was then to first break the news -- a rumor at the time -- via my Twitter feed that all of Mono's developers would be losing their positions...

Will kubuntu natty stabilize? Ever?: First off, let me tell you something before I start my rant on kubuntu: I've been a kubuntu user for 6 years now... and I don't intend to switch to gnome (ubuntu) or xfce (xubuntu) or any other of the other variants anytime soon. I like KDE and I'm willing to put up with the nag that I have to go through in order to continue using it

Oracle Ordered to Reduce Claims Against Google From 132 to 3: The judge handling the Oracle v. Google patent litigation, Hon. William Alsup, has issued his order [PDF] on how much each side must cut back its claims and/or defenses. He didn't accept either side's numbers but came up with his own, and this case just got a whole lot smaller -- he has ordered Oracle to cut back its claims from 132 down to only 3:..

#fedora - You are always Wrong: Fair warning - I am about to go off on a rant here. I discovered this evening much to my dismay that the year and a half old western digital hard drive in my main laptop is dieing. All three of the Linux installs on the system failed in various ways (typically a sign of a hardware issue) so I grabbed the closest live CD and popped it in. Now, it's been awhile since I've burned a live CD so the top disc in my spindle was an old Fedora 13 disc. After the system booted up, I connected to my wireless internet and was on my way.

How to painlessly switch from Ubuntu to Fedora: Ubuntu and Fedora are arguably the most popular Linux distros out there today. They both make a huge impact on the Linux community release after release, but are somewhat opposite philosphies at times. Fedora, the RedHat-sponsored community project is adamant of RPM packages, while Ubuntu is based on Debian and therefore uses DEB packages. Fedora maintains that RedHat corporate environment vibe to it, more like a specialised distro, the perfect choice for developers. Ubuntu, on the other hand, based its strategy around creating "Linux for human beings", a friendly desktop environment that is accessible to all kinds of users.

Multiplatform Java botnet spotted in the wild: Cross-platform malware is still a rare occurrence, so when it's detected, it usually attracts more attention than the malware engineered to affect only one particular platform. A recent one, detected by McAfee and "named" IncognitoRAT attacks both Windows and Mac OS users. So, how does it manage to do it?